I previously wrote about Rian using Animated Language Learning here. 7 months later I wanted to follow up.
We started using ALL in October 2013 and in January 2014 he completely freaked out when we got to Chapter 3 – especially the scene where Rocky (the muscle guy) is using the tape. We had to leave it for 5 months because every time he saw Toy Story he became very distressed. Then he started watching the Toy Story movie again and I tried him with ALL in June and he was fine – until we were about to start Chapter 3 and he started shouting ‘chapter 2..chapter 2′ – some memory!! I was able to show him a little bit of chapter 3 with Rocky lifting the weights and now when I am doing my workout Rian lifts my weights and says ‘lifting’ – its very funny to see him weightlifting (very light weights)!!
He is still hard to settle at the programme for more than 10 minutes BUT his language is improving so much! He has started to use some of the emotion words and will now say ‘Rian happy’ or if he crashes when playing Mario Wii he’ll say ‘oh its so sad’! Also, his pretend play is excellent now and he is using all the words – flying, lifting, etc. He is doing a lot of scripting and when he saw a picture of Lotso the bear he said “Well hello there welcome to Sunnyside Daycare” – that’s 8 words so we’re delighted!
He is scripting from ‘Finding Nemo’ too so it’s all good. We went on holiday for 2 weeks in June and his tutor said he settled back into school no problem (they’re open for July). Also, before the holidays his teacher said she will start mainstreaming him into the playground in September (he is now four and a half and starting his second year of pre-school in an ASD unit at a mainstream primary school). We are absolutely thrilled with all his improvements in the past year and although his use of ALL has been sporadic, it has definitely helped him to get where he is today!! Thank you
Leave A Comment